


The Way I Am

by kjack89



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Movie Fusion, Curse Breaking, Curses, Developing Relationship, Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, Magic, Misunderstandings, Penelope AU, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-01-06
Packaged: 2018-09-14 12:43:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9182299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjack89/pseuds/kjack89
Summary: PenelopeAU.Enjolras is a son of high society with a curse that can only be broken by marrying a fellow blue blood. The only problem is that his curse tends to send everyone running and screaming at the sight of him. Everyone, that is, but Grantaire.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [myhufflepuffpants](https://tmblr.co/mxbOKLaC-LNlkDVG57pr3_w), who requested E/R pining with a happy ending, and whose prompt was broad enough that I could use it to write this fic.
> 
> Penelope AU, as that film just popped up at the front of my Netflix Watch Instantly list and I watched it again ~~and I couldn’t stop myself~~. For those unfamiliar with the film, it’s a modern fairytale with a cursed high society darling and the dashing young man who just might be the one to break the curse. This fic diverges from the film in a lot of ways, so if you haven't seen it, you should still be able to understand everything. This will be either 3 or 4 parts depending how it shakes out.
> 
> Usual disclaimer applies. Please be kind and tip your fanfic writers in the form of comments and/or kudos!

“Enjolras.” Louis Philippe’s voice was soft and gentle, and he leaned his head against the one-way mirror, trailing his finger slowly down the glass. “Dear, sweet Enjolras. I’d given up all hope of ever finding someone who truly understands me. At least, I had given up all hope...until I met you.”  


He waited expectantly, but only silence met this announcement, and for a moment, Louis looked a little taken aback, but then he carefully smoothed his features back to where they were before. “You see, like you, I have also felt imprisoned most of my life.”

“Really? By what?” Enjolras asked, his voice slightly tinny as it echoed through the library. Maybe it was just the speakers, but Enjolras sounded completely bored by the conversation. “By your good looks and your good name?”

“Yes, exactly,” Louis said, sounding slightly relieved. “No one ever seems able to see past that. But Enjolras — dear, sweet Enjolras — curse or no curse, if I am more than just my name and my face, well then, surely you are more than yours.”

Again, he waited for a response, but this time, the silence remained unbroken. Louis sighed and rapped lightly against the glass with his knuckles. “Let me in,” he said, his tone wheedling. “Enjolras, let me in.”

Without warning, the door next to the mirror opened, and a tall, lithe blond stepped out, smiling frostily at Louis. “Hi,” Enjolras said pleasantly, his smile not wavering when Louis took one look at his face and let out an ear-splitting screech before turning and fleeing from the room.

Only when Enjolras heard the tell-tale sound of the front door slamming did his shoulders slump, and he turned to survey himself in the mirror, prodding his nose resignedly. Well, perhaps the word ‘snout’ would be more appropriate. For while most of Enjolras’s physique was nothing if not downright aesthetically pleasing, it was marred by the presence of a pig’s snout in lieu of his nose.

“Why, Enjolras?” Enjolras’s mother asked, appearing at the library door and looking equal parts agitated and exasperated. “Why?”

Enjolras sighed and turned away from his reflection. “I’m not the one who ran, Mother,” he reminded her, slumping back inside his bedroom.

“Well of course they run, dear, when you _spring_ yourself at them,” his mother hissed, stalking after him. “Do you think I showed your father my mole on our third date? No! I had the good sense to wait until after we were married.”

Sighing again, Enjolras plopped down on his bed, pointedly turning his back on his mother. “I didn’t show him my mole,” he said, more to himself than her. “I showed him my face.”

His mother hesitated, clearly searching for words of comfort and coming up empty. “He really liked you, too,” she said, a touch desperately.

Enjolras rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “No, Mom, he really didn’t.”

“He did!” she protested, sitting primly on the edge of Enjolras’s bed. “He didn’t like your nose, that’s what he didn’t like. And you are _not_ your nose.” Enjolras automatically raised a hand to prod his snout lightly, sighing when his mother batted his hand away. “After all, it’s your great, great, great grandfather’s nose. On your father’s side. He did this to you...to us.”

Local legend had it that the source of Enjolras’s unfortunate nose and the problems that followed it was a curse, a curse placed on the Tholomyès family when Enjolras’s great, great, great grandfather Félix had a fling with a commoner named Fantine, who was soon eating for two. When he told his family of his plans to marry Fantine, he realized how silly he’d been. Fantine was, after all, just a commoner. Félix married someone more suitable, and Fantine met an early end.

The night Fantine died, her caretaker, the town witch, whose name was Sister Simplice, showed up on the Tholomyès lawn, determined to give these blue bloods a taste of their own medicine. And she cursed them and commanded that the next firstborn Tholomyès male be born with the face of a pig. And only when one of their own kind pledges to love this son until death do they part, will the curse be broken.

What made the curse doubly cruel was that Félix’s father, in retribution for his son’s temporary indiscretion, had changed his will that very morning to ensure that the bulk of the Tholomyès fortune passed to the next firstborn Tholomyès male on the day he got married.

Time passed, and as luck would have it, the next five Tholomyès brides gave birth to all daughters first, and whose sons fathered all daughters first, and so on.  


Which meant the next firstborn Tholomyès male was Enjolras.

After desperate attempts to removed her son’s... _abnormality_ proved futile, Enjolras’s mother took the only means left to her: she hid Enjolras from the world until his eighteenth birthday, when she hired a matchmaker whose dating agency catered to the best and the brightest blue bloods in hopes of finding one to break Enjolras’s curse by accepting him as he was.

Not even Enjolras’s pronouncement on his thirteenth birthday that he liked men and not women could stop her plans, and for the past six years, Enjolras had met eligible bachelor after eligible bachelor, with the same result everytime: a shriek of horror as soon as they got a look at Enjolras’s face, and a desperate flight from the house.

Which really meant that day was much like any other.  
   
Enjolras’s mother sighed and rubbed his arm soothingly. “Maybe we should double the dowry again,” she suggested.

Enjolras didn’t even bother sighing. “If they can’t stand me now, what makes you think they’ll be able to for double?”

“Well, with _that_ attitude,” his mom sniffed, and Enjolras could barely summon enough energy to glare at her and mutter, “Right, because it’s my attitude that’s the problem.”

His mother ignored him, prattling on with words of encouragement and next steps they would take, but Enjolras had long since stopped listening. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling and dreamed of what life would be like if he hadn’t been born with a pig snout for a nose.  


* * *

Grantaire woke with a start, blinking around himself and trying to figure out where he was. He appeared to have passed out in one of the richest neighborhoods in town, if the sprawling mansion behind him was any indication. He looked down at himself and groaned. “Remind me not to let Prouvaire dress me before going out,” he said outloud to no one in particular, brushing dirt and morning dew off of the pinstriped blazer and black skinny jeans he barely remembered his friend Jehan Prouvaire insisting he wore last night.

By all accounts — which is to say, Grantaire’s very foggy memory — it had been a night out like any other, which meant Grantaire had downed half his weight in whiskey and beer and hadn’t quite made it home. Again. At least given his lack of bruises and broken ribs, he hadn’t gotten in a fight. For once.

“As always, it could be worse,” Grantaire sighed, carefully picking himself off the ground. He reached up to run a hand through his dark curls but paused when he felt a hat perched jauntily on top of his head. He pulled it off and frowned at it, trying to remember where it had come from. “And as always, this is as good as it’s going to get.”

He shrugged and replaced the hat on top of his head before setting off a little unsteadily down the road toward his part of town and his waiting bed.

But he only made it past about three houses when someone called out to him. “Excuse me!” Grantaire didn’t stop, figuring that no one in this neighborhood would deign to talk to him. “Excuse me!”

Grantaire paused, trying to focus on the red-headed figure in front of him, a kindly looking woman who was beaming at him. “Did the agency send you?” she asked, pen hovering expectantly over the clipboard she held. Grantaire stared at her, and behind her at the massive red-brick mansion whose gates were thrown open in some invitation Grantaire had definitely not received.

“Sorry?” he said, more than a little pleased when he didn’t overly slur the word.

“I said, did the agency send you? To meet Monsieur Enjolras Tholomyès?” the woman repeated, before continuing without giving him a chance to respond, “You’re only a few minutes late, but we haven’t started yet. I’ll need your signature here on this non-disclosure form, Mister….?”

She trailed off expectantly and it took a moment for Grantaire to realize what she was after. “Um, Grantaire,” he said, a little dazedly, and he let her press the pen in his hand and signed where she pointed. Then, without warning, she grabbed his arm and rather forcefully steered him inside the gates, through the front door, up the stairs, and into the library, where Grantaire promptly tripped on what appeared to be a perfectly flat surface and sprawled on the floor behind the couch.

The red-headed woman let herself in the door next to the one-way mirror, smiling at Enjolras, who was looking out at the assembled group of generically handsome men with a bored expression. “They’re all assembled in the library,” she told Enjolras, who shot her a distracted smile.

“Thanks, Matelote.”

Enjolras’s mother fussed over his appearance, straightening his tie and rearranging his blond curls. “Why you wouldn’t rather talk to them one at a time is beyond me,” she said through pursed lips.

Enjolras carefully sidestepped her ministrations and tousled his hair with one hand. “I told you, this way it will be easier to weed out the unlikelys.”

Without warning, he grabbed the doorknob and opened the door, stepping out into the library. “Hello, I’m Enjolras,” he told the assembled group. “And you must be…”

The words hadn’t even left his mouth and all the men had disappeared, their shrieks echoing down the hallway. “...Late for lunch,” Enjolras finished, turning on heel and walking back into his bedroom, slamming the door after him.

His mother was horrified. “How could you?” she gasped, following behind him as he made for the kitchen. 

“Just speeding things up,” Enjolras said dryly, grabbing a mug and the pot of coffee and pouring himself a cup.

He offered the coffee pot to his mother, who bypassed him and went straight for the liquor cabinet. “Just one man, Enjolras, just one,” she sighed, as she poured herself two fingers of vodka, considered it, and poured herself another two.

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “And he’ll run, too. They always run. Why can’t you accept that?” His mom didn’t answer, instead draining her glass of vodka in a single gulp. Enjolras set his mug down on the counter with a loud _bang_. “For six years I’ve been watching them run from the sight of me. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel?”

His mother poured herself another glass of vodka. “Well, then what would you suggest?” she snapped. “We can’t just quit!”

“Yes, we can!” Enjolras shot back. “Because no matter how much you want to believe that there’s one man who won’t run away—”

Matelote let out a shriek. “Sweet loving angel of all things merciful!” she gasped, clutching her heaving chest with one hand while pointing a shaking finger toward the library.

For in the library, having finally found his sense of balance, Grantaire had gotten to his feet and was staring around him with a bemused expression. Enjolras’s mom gasped as well. “Did he see?” she asked, rushing to the mirror and practically pressing her nose against it.

“He must have, he was there,” Matelote said.

Enjolras slowly made his way over, not daring to believe it. “Who is he?” he asked curiously, watching closely at Grantaire slowly strolled around the library, looking at all the glossy books.

“Who cares!” Matelote and Enjolras’s mom said in unison, shoving Enjolras over to the microphone. 

Enjolras slowly settled onto the seat next to the mirror, watching as Grantaire selected a book off the shelf and flipped through it. He glanced back at his mom, who gestured impatiently at him. “You’re still here,” he said, hiding a smile when Grantaire jumped and dropped the book he was holding, staring wildly around for the source of the voice. “Did you see?”

“See?” Grantaire repeated, a little suspiciously, not entirely sure if it was just his imagination or the whiskey talking.

Enjolras frowned slightly. “So you didn’t see,” he said, a bit disappointed.

Grantaire’s taxed mind had finally put two and two together, and he assumed the voice was coming from someone behind the mirror, to which he shot his most devilish smirk. “Didn’t I?”

“Did you?” Enjolras demanded, his brow puckering.

“Did I what?” Grantaire asked innocently, bending to pick up the book he had dropped.

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed, and he pressed both hands against the glass in frustration. “Don’t mess with me,” he warned.

Grantaire grinned. “I wasn’t aware that I was,” he told the disembodied voice, rather enjoying himself, and he sat down on the couch with an air of satisfaction.

For a moment, Enjolras was quiet, and Grantaire almost started worrying that he had gone too far. Then Enjolras asked abruptly, “Why are you still here?”  
  
Grantaire raised an eyebrow in the direction of the mirror. “I’m sorry, should I go?” he shot back, gesturing with the book in his hand toward the door.  
  
Not even the best soundproofing money could buy could fully muffle Enjolras’s mother and Matelote’s joint shriek, “No!”

Enjolras rolled his eyes and shot them a look before turning back to Grantaire, his attention now on the book in his hand. “Are you a fan of Rousseau?”

Grantaire stared blankly at the mirror. “Who?”

“The book in your hand,” Enjolras said, smirking.

Grantaire looked down at the book as if noticing it for the first time. “Oh, right. Sure. Great book. Great author.”

“So you’ve read it?” Enjolras asked eagerly.

“Psh,” Grantaire said dismissively. “Of course. Who wouldn’t enjoy…” He glanced down at the book. “ _Of the Social Contract, or Principles of the Political Right_?”

Enjolras snorted. “Sure,” he said, clearly skeptical of Grantaire’s claim. “So then what do you think of Voltaire’s criticism, ‘Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid’?”

For a moment, it looked like Grantaire might try to formulate an actual answer, but then he laughed and shook his head. “Fine, you caught me. I haven’t read it. But if I had picked up a copy of Kierkegaard, I could bend your ear all day.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a _nihilist_ ,” Enjolras said, scandalized.

Grantaire’s grin returned. “I would prefer the term realist.”

Enjolras propped his chin on his hand, his own smile softening as he watched Grantaire flip the book open again. “So why did you pick up Rousseau, then, Of all the books in this library?”

“I was intrigued,” Grantaire said honestly. “This library is full of shiny, glossy hardcovers, but tucked up on that shelf was one ratty paperback. I wanted to see what book merited such a position of honor among the rest. It’s clearly been well-loved.” He raised an eyebrow at the mirror. “Of course, that makes me question and judge literally everything about you.”

Enjolras laughed and Grantaire’s grin widened. “So are you ever going to come out from behind that mirror?” he asked. Silence met his question and Grantaire’s smile faded. “Enjolras?” he asked, scooting forward to the edge of the couch. “Enjolras?”

When there was no answer, Grantaire stood, feeling a little disconcerted. He tossed the book on the couch and started to head towards the door. Suddenly, Enjolras asked, “Will you be back tomorrow?”

Grantaire turned around, grinning. “I knew you were still there,” he said, a little triumphantly.

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “Will you be back tomorrow?” he repeated.

Grantaire considered the question for a moment. “You know what?” he said. “I just might.”

With that, he was gone, and Enjolras leaned back in his seat, smiling slightly. Behind him, Matelote and Enjolras’s mom were practically giddy. “He’ll be back,” Matelote said confidently. “I know he will.”

Enjolras’s mom beamed at him. “Sweetheart, he’s perfect, don’t you think?”

Enjolras shrugged. “He’s not a fan of Rousseau,” he hedged, though he was still smiling.

“Look at it this way,” he mom said, “Even though he’s not a fan, of the 2,000 books in there that aren’t your favorite, he still chose the one that is.”

“Yeah,” Enjolras said softly. “There is that.”  



	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnd now it's looking like this might end up being 5 parts. We shall see.

The next day found Grantaire back in the library of the Tholomyès mansion admiring the sculpted bust in the corner of the room while he waited for Enjolras. He ran his fingers admiringly over the work and jumped when Enjolras’s voice boomed out of the speakers. “Do you sculpt?”  


“I really wish you’d stop doing that!” Grantaire said as he whirled around before running a tired hand over his face. Since he’d been looking forward to this pretty much since leaving the previous day, he had made the conscious decision not to go out the previous night. But of course, he still had alcohol in his apartment. But hey, at least he had passed out in his bed and not on the street.

“Sorry,” Enjolras said, though he sounded more amused than anything. “So do you sculpt?” 

Grantaire smirked. “Well, I _have_ been told that I’m good with my hands.”

He could practically hear the scowl in Enjolras’s voice as he replied, “That was _not_ what I asked.” His tone turned thoughtful. “So you don’t sculpt. But you do something artistic...do you play an instrument?”

Shrugging, Grantaire meandered towards the mirror. “Sometimes I sing karaoke. Sometimes if I’m drunk enough, I sing without the aid of karaoke. Does that count?”

“Not really,” Enjolras said, laughing.

Grantaire shrugged again. “Well, that’s enough about me, since I promise, I’m really not all that interesting. What do _you_ play?”

“Chess,” Enjolras told him. “Want to play?”

* * *

“Knight to King 4,” Enjolras said, and Grantaire obediently moved Enjolras’s knight to the ordered space. 

“So you want to start a non-profit?” Grantaire asked, examining the board as if planning his next move. “That’s pretty cool. What do you want to do?”

Enjolras took a moment before answering. “You’re going to think it’s stupid,” he hedged, and Grantaire just shot a look at the mirror. “Fine. I want to create a grant program for inner city schools. Education is the only way that we can even begin to tackle the problems of income inequality, and lack of equal access to quality education is a huge issue.”

Grantaire looked surprised. “I don’t think that’s stupid at all. I think it’s pretty awesome, actually.” He captured one of Enjolras’s pawns with one of his own. “Of course, I see you as more of a cop, since you’ve gotten the interrogating thing down.”

“Wanting to know more about you is hardly interrogation,” Enjolras scoffed. “How else would I know that you...paint watercolors?”

“You can stop trying to guess,” Grantaire said with a grin. “I’m not going to tell you if you’re right.” He looked down at the board. “It’s your turn.”

Enjolras paused. “Pawn to Queen’s Rook 3.”

Grantaire made the move and then picked up his own bishop, rolling it thoughtfully between his fingers. “So you’ve never had a beer.”

“I didn’t say that,” Enjolras said, clearly affronted. “I said I’d never been to a bar. I’ve definitely had a beer. Once. On my 21st birthday, I think.”

“As confident as you sound in that answer, have you ever had a beer on tap?” Grantaire asked, and when Enjolras was silent, he smiled triumphantly. “See. Then you’ve never had a beer.” 

He placed his bishop back down on the board. “Your bishop can’t do that,” Enjolras told him. “It can only move diagonally.”

“Well, how about you and me head diagonally down to this great bar I know, the Café Musain?” Grantaire said, waggling his eyebrows at the mirror. “See what I did there? With the whole, moving diagonally thing?”

Mercifully, Enjolras chose to overlook that. “The Café Musain?” he asked.

Grantaire sighed happily at the very thought, leaning against the mirror. “Great place,” he told Enjolras. “Best beer, best whiskey, some of the best assholes you’ll ever meet. A couple of them are even really political — you’d like them.”

“That does sound nice,” Enjolras said carefully. “But not today. Maybe later.”

“Come on, Enjolras,” Grantaire said wheedlingly, tapping his bishop against the mirror. “Come on, you’ve got to get out of there sometime. What are you waiting for?” Enjolras was silent, and Grantaire sighed, his shoulders slumping. “You know,” he said quietly, “the truth is, you’re not missing much out here.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Enjolras told him, picking up on the sudden change in Grantaire’s mood. “The Café Musain sounds fun. And I hear there’s protests and rallies.”

Grantaire snorted. “That would be something that you’d enjoy. You know, I was accidentally at one not too long ago, right in the middle of the park — you’d love the park, too. I used to spend every evening there, just hanging out on a bench, sketching and people watching…”

He trailed off, his expression turning dark. “Used to?” Enjolras asked. “You don’t do that anymore? What are you doing instead?”

“Not a whole lot of anything,” Grantaire muttered, before shaking his head and forcing a smile onto his face. “But right now, I’m about to beat you at chess.”

“I really wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Enjolras said, amused, as Grantaire set his bishop decidedly on the board. “It leaves your queen wide open, and I’ll kill her.”

Grantaire shrugged nonchalantly. “So? I got other pieces. My king’s still around.”  


“Once the queen’s dead, the king’s useless,” Enjolras told him dryly. “Which means the game’s over.”

“Well that doesn’t seem right,” Grantaire said, pouting slightly. “What’s that about anyway? Seems like sexism to me that the king can’t do anything without some woman.”

Enjolras’s tone was incredulous when he replied, “Are you _kidding_ me?”

Grantaire grinned. “Of course I am. Please, my friend Éponine would kick my ass if I ever said something like that in sincerity. But it got you to use that tone with me, and that’s all that matters.”

He tipped a wink at the mirror and Enjolras sighed. “So you’re really going to leave your bishop there?”

Grantaire shrugged. “I don’t know, I still think my king can take care of itself.”

“Fine, then my queen to yours. Checkmate.”

Grantaire tipped his king over with one finger. “You got me,” he said, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. He sat back and stretched. “So. Same time tomorrow?”

“Are you leaving already?” Enjolras asked, surprised. 

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at the mirror. “I’ve been here for six hours,” he said, grinning. “Of course, if you want me to stay, I suppose I could. But only if you answer a question for me, because I’ve been trying to figure it out all day and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Fire away,” Enjolras said, sounding equal parts surprised and curious.

Grantaire leaned forward. “Why do you want to break this curse so badly, anyway?” he asked. “I mean, I get it, it probably sucks being cursed or whatever, but like, no offense, but you don’t really strike me as the kind of person who really cares about his appearance.”

Enjolras snorted. “It’s not about my appearance,” he said, a little nettled. “To break the curse, I have to get married. And in order to get my inheritance, I have to — wait for it — get married.”

Grantaire frowned slightly. “So this is all about getting your inheritance?” he asked skeptically. “Honestly, that sounds even less like you than a pure narcissist who just cares about his appearance. Besides, why do you even need an inheritance? You’re already rich.”

“Ignoring the fact that I think you’re defining narcissism a little narrowly, I don’t want the money for myself,” Enjolras snapped. “Remember the non-profit I told you I wanted to start? Think of how many more kids I could help with an inheritance. Not only that, I could branch beyond education grants. We’re talking housing grants, economic development grants...every penny of that inheritance would go right back into the community. But hey, if you think that’s narcissistic of me…”

“I don’t,” Grantaire said quietly, a strange, almost sad look on his face. “I think it’s amazing.” He snorted. “Far more amazing than anything I’ve ever wanted to do.” He paused, worrying his lower lip with his teeth. “And to break the curse, you have to marry a blue blood.”

“‘One of my own kind’,” Enjolras quoted, his tone turning questioning. “Why? What’s going on?”

Grantaire shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just…I think you’re amazing, honestly, and I want more than anything in the world for you to get your inheritance and break the curse and do all the incredible things you want to do, but...I can’t do this anymore.”

“What?” Enjolras said, alarmed. “Grantaire, what are you talking about?”

Shaking his head slowly, Grantaire stood, avoiding looking at the mirror. “I have to go,” he said, turning towards the door.

“Grantaire, wait.” A hand closed on Grantaire’s, warm and soft against his skin, and Grantaire turned to look at Enjolras for the first time.

His eyes widened. “Shit,” he said, almost as a reflex, and Enjolras’s eyes widened as well, and he took an automatic step back.

“I’m a monster,” he said quietly, and Grantaire shook his head, tearing his eyes away from Enjolras’s nose.

“Enjolras, no, you’re not, and it’s not you, it’s—”

“I know it’s not me,” Enjolras interrupted, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears and his cheeks burning. “I know this face repulses you, and I wouldn’t dream of asking you to accept it. But this isn’t me.” He gestured impatiently at himself. “The real me’s inside here somewhere, just waiting to come out. And you can make that happen.” Grantaire shook his head again and Enjolras reached out and grabbed his hand. “Once the curse is broken, I’ll be just like everyone else.”

“You could never be just like everyone else,” Grantaire murmured, and a hurt expression crossed Enjolras’s face. “Not like that,” Grantaire added quickly, but the damage seemed already done. “What if the curse isn’t broken?” he blurted, and Enjolras stared at him, confused. “What if it can never be broken?”

Enjolras just shook his head. “But it _can_ be,” he said quietly. “Please, Grantaire—” Without warning, he dropped to one knee, still holding Grantaire’s hand. “Please. Marry me.”

“I can’t.”

It was the hardest two words Grantaire had ever had to say, but nothing would ever hurt him as badly as the look that crossed Enjolras’s face. “Get out,” Enjolras spat, standing up and yanking his hand away from Grantaire. “Get out!”

He turned on heel and fled back into his bedroom, slamming the door after him to drown out Grantaire’s calls of, “Wait! Give me a chance to explain!”

Grantaire didn’t pursue Enjolras as he tore through the house, but Enjolras’s mother did. “Darling, wait!” 

“I told you!” Enjolras shouted at his mom, angrily wiping tears away from his cheeks with the heel of his hand. “I told you that this would happen!”

His mom shook her head. “No,” she told him. “No, you ran. This time, it was you who ran, not him.”

“So what!” Enjolras retorted. “He still said no! He just stood there, staring at me, and he said no.”

“Maybe you just need to give the poor boy a chance to adjust,” his mom said desperately. “And if not, then so what. There are others out there.”

Enjolras shook his head. “Not like that,” he said softly. “Not like him.”

His mother squared her shoulders. “No, you’re right. We will find someone better than him. This is nothing we haven’t been through before, and we can do it again. I’m certainly not going to give up.”

Enjolras stared at her, the weight of this utter heartbreak as well as the past six years weighing on him like iron. “No,” he said, his voice quiet but ringing with conviction. “No, not this time. I’m not doing this again.”

“So you’d just give up on everything we’ve worked for?” his mother practically shrieked.

“Yeah, I would,” Enjolras said, suddenly calm. “And I am.” 

Without another word, Enjolras grabbed his father’s coat from where it was hanging next to the door and went outside for the first time in nearly twenty years, ignoring his mother’s desperate cries after him as he walked away from the life he might’ve known towards his first taste of something close to freedom.  



	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve gotten it back to four parts. Literally no one will be excited about this but me, but there we are. Preemptive apology if there are more typos than usual in here — my computer was being super glichy while I was writing this, and while I _could_ have gone in and edited between last night when I posted this on tumblr and this morning, I, of course, chose not to. C'est la vie.

Musichetta leaned against the bar, smiling at Grantaire with something close to sympathy in her eyes. “How are you doing this morning, champ?” she asked.  


Grantaire squinted up at her, his eyes ringed with exhaustion and heartbreak. “I thought you went home,” he managed, propping his chin up with his hand.

“I did,” Musichetta said, raising an eyebrow at him. “I slept for eight blissful hours, fixed breakfast for Bossuet and Joly and kissed them both goodbye.” She nodded at the half-full pint of beer in front of Grantaire. “You need a refill?”

Grantaire shook his head slowly, trying desperately to think of where the last eight and then some hours had gone. The only thing he had to show for it was a half-doodled sketch of a handsome blond man on the napkin next to his beer — half-finished, because he hadn’t drawn a nose. “I don’t know,” he muttered. “I think I should go home.”

At the other end of the bar, an older gentleman chortled. “He’s still got beer,” he said dismissively. “He’s not going anywhere.”

All Musichetta had to do was narrow her eyes at the gentleman for him to fall silent and turn away. She looked back at Grantaire. “So what’ll it be?” she asked. “More beer, or are you going home?”

Wordlessly, Grantaire picked up his beer, drained it, and stood, shrugging into his coat as he left the Musain, his mind far from the bar and in a mansion across town. He’d love to say it was some kind of moment of clarity, of realization that he couldn’t keep wasting his life like this. It wasn’t.

But it might just be the start of something.

* * *

Enjolras pulled the red scarf he had found in his dad’s coat pocket tighter around his nose and mouth and looked both ways before darting across the street toward the bar whose neon lights proclaimed the Café Musain. He cautiously opened the door and looked inside. The dark-haired bartender looked over at him, pausing from where she was wiping off the counter. “Well, come in, love, we don’t bite.”

“Not unless you want us to, anyway,” a curly-haired man sitting at the bar called, winking at Enjolras in a way that he assumed was meant to be sexual but was more funny than anything.

The man sitting next to him sighed and adjusted his glasses. “Christ, Courfeyrac, don’t scare the poor guy. Not everyone finds your humor as compelling as you think they do.”

The curly-haired man, Courfeyrac, waved a dismissive hand and patted the bar stool on the other side of him, beaming at Enjolras. “Well in that case, come sit by me and I’ll buy you a drink to make up for my inappropriate sexual advances.”

Almost against his better judgment, Enjolras crossed the bar and sat down next to Courfeyrac, who offered him a hand to shake. “I’m Courfeyrac and this is Combeferre,” he said, gesturing to the bespectacled man next to him. “What are you drinking?”

“Um, can I get a beer on tap?” Enjolras asked, a little hesitantly.

“Sweetheart, you can have anything you want,” Courfeyrac said, fluttering his eyelashes at him and gesturing at the bartender. 

Combeferre rolled his eyes. “For Christ’s sake. One of these days, someone’s going to haul off and deck you one, and I won’t do anything but laugh.”

The bartender set a beer down in front of Enjolras. “Ignore them,” she told Enjolras with a winning smile. “They’re always like this, at least, they are when they’re not busy trying to overthrow the government. Can I get you anything else?”

“Um, yeah,” Enjolras said, glancing down at the beer. “Can I get a straw?”

For a moment, the bartender looked taken aback, but then she grabbed a straw off the counter and popped it into the beer. “There you are. If you need anything else, just holler. My name’s Musichetta.”

She sauntered off to take care of another customer and Enjolras turned to Courfeyrac and raised his beer in a toast. “Thanks,” he said, before slipping the straw under his scarf and taking a sip.

“So, are you hiding from the law or just hiding a bad nose job?” Courfeyrac asked, propping his chin on his hand as he smiled winningly at Grantaire.

Combeferre elbowed him in the ribs. “You can’t just ask someone if they’ve had a nose job,” he hissed.

Courfeyrac scowled at him. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to ask someone why they were white!” he protested. “No one ever mentioned anything about nose jobs.”

Enjolras snorted. “It’s fine,” he reassured Combeferre. “And yeah, I suppose you could say it’s a bad nose job, for lack of anything better to call it.” He took another sip of beer. “So what did Musichetta mean, when you’re not busy trying to overthrow the government?”

Combeferre and Courfeyrac exchanged glances. “We’re what you might call, disturbers of the peace,” Courfeyrac said glibly, raising his martini in a salute.

“No justice, no peace,” Combeferre muttered darkly. “We started a political activist organization when we were in university, and we’ve been trying to grow it ever since. We led the hunger march last year in the park—”

“—And the sit-in in the mayor’s office,” Courfeyrac added helpfully.

“Right, and now we’re trying to organize some kind of rally or protest or something in regards to the latest police murders,” Combeferre said. “City Hall thinks they can cover it up, but we won’t let them. We’re just...not sure how best to address it.”

He shrugged and took a sip of wine, while Enjolras leaned forward, his eyes alight with a fervor he hadn’t felt in years. “It’s fucking bullshit,” he said passionately. “And I don’t see why you can’t just take to the streets and tell it like it is — fuck the pigs!”

Courfeyrac grinned slowly. “I knew I was going to like you.” He raised his glass for a toast. “Fuck the pigs!”

“Fuck the pigs!” Enjolras and Combeferre said in unison, clinking their glasses against Courfeyrac’s.

Courfeyrac drained his martini and beamed at Enjolras. “Of course, when you’re marching with us, shouting, ‘fuck the pigs’, people will understand you a lot better without this scarf muffling everything you say.”

Before Enjolras could even figure out what he was doing, Courfeyrac leaned forward and tugged the scarf away from Enjolras’s face, his hand falling away when he saw what was underneath. “Oh, shit,” he said, eyes wide. “That is a bad nose job.”

Enjolras flushed and quickly pulled the scarf up, but the damage was already done. Both Combeferre and Courfeyrac were staring at him, and Enjolras looked away, mentally bracing for them to run away like the rest of everyone who had seen him. Instead, Combeferre just raised his eyebrows and took another sip of wine. “Well, that face plus the message ‘fuck the pigs’ is pretty much guaranteed to get out picture in the paper.”

Enjolras chanced a look up at them. “And that’s a...a good thing?” he asked hesitantly.

Courfeyrac grinned at him. “It’d be more publicity than we’ve gotten in the past four years.” Slowly, he reached out again for Enjolras’s scarf, this time pausing until Enjolras nodded his permission slowly. “See, that’s better,” he said, pulling the scarf away once more. “And this way, you can drink your beer without a straw, because we have a friend who would absolutely kill you if he saw you drinking beer with a straw.”

Enjolras smiled slightly. “So...fuck the pigs?”

Combeferre and Courfeyrac both smiled in return. “Fuck the pigs.”

* * *

“Your paper, madame,” the butler said, offering Enjolras’s mother the newspaper folded on a silver platter.

“Thank you, Porter,” she said, grabbing the paper and unfolding it. Her eyes widened as she gaped at the headline which read, ‘Pig Protests Pigs’, splashed above a huge picture of Enjolras, snout shown for all to see, shouting in the face of a horrified policeman.

She promptly fainted, the newspaper fluttering to the ground next to her.

Across town, Grantaire stared down at the newspaper, his mouth hanging slightly open in shock before slowly curving into a smile. He stood and stretched before slowly crossing the room to the blank canvas propped on the easel in the corner. He picked up a paintbrush and tapped his chin thoughtfully, eyeing the canvas as if he knew exactly what he wanted to paint.

In the Musain, Enjolras was trying his best to hide behind his glass of beer, but it was to no avail. Total strangers kept coming up to congratulate him, or introduce themselves or just to gawk. Combeferre and Courfeyrac ran interference as much as they could, eventually dragging Enjolras to the back room of the bar. “Do you see how many people showed up?” Courfeyrac asked Combeferre, hanging onto Enjolras’s arm as they pushed through the crowd.

Enjolras rubbed the back of his neck embarrassedly. “Sorry about all this,” he muttered, but Combeferre cut him off.

“No, no, it’s a good thing,” Combeferre assured him with a smile. “We’re always trying to get more people involved with Les Amis, and sure, some are probably just here to stare like a bunch of creeps—” He shot a nasty look at a girl who had just slopped her drink all over herself and was openly oggling Enjolras. “—But we may actually get through to the rest, and that’s the important thing.”

A few minutes later, as Enjolras stood up in front of the assembled group to give the speech he had spent all day preparing on his vision about next steps for Les Amis, as he gazed out at the sea of people who were staring at him for the first time in his life not in revulsion but with interest and excitement and even, in some cases, affection, Enjolras couldn’t help but feel that maybe Combeferre was right.

* * *

After the meeting, Enjolras made his way through the crowd to lean against the bar, gesturing Musichetta over. “Can I just get a glass of water?” he shouted over the crowd.

“If you keep bringing this many customers in, you can have anything you want,” Musichetta called back, sliding a glass of water over to him.

Enjolras grinned at her in thanks and turned to head back to the back room, stopping in his tracks when he saw Grantaire standing in front of him, his hands in his pockets and a cautious smile on his face. “So you made it to the Café Musain,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras’s hand tightened on his glass of water as he barely controlled the urge to throw it in his face. “And you look...you look really good. Really happy.”

Enjolras lifted his chin slightly. “Thanks,” he said, his voice cold. “I am.”

The words ‘no thanks to you’ hung unspoken between them, and Grantaire flushed slightly, dropping his gaze to the ground. “I just...I wanted to let you know that you inspired me. Doing what you did, taking off on your own, turning your back on everything expected of you — it made me want to be better.”

“I have to go,” Enjolras said, almost numbly, and he pushed past Grantaire, not seeing the look of hurt that flashed across Grantaire’s face as he watched Enjolras walk away.

But Combeferre noticed, his smile fading as he watched Enjolras make his way back to him and Courfeyrac. “What was that about?” he asked.

Courfeyrac followed the line of Combeferre’s sight but completely missed Grantaire, seeing only an atractive woman standing near him. “Someone sexy want to date you?” he asked cheerfully. “The perils of fame, my friend.”

Enjolras laughed, though it was without humor. “It’s nothing,” he said, brushing it off. “I’m just...I’m not really ready. To date, I mean.”

“Well, why not?” Courfeyrac asked. “All these people, there must be at least someone who catches your eye.”

Enjolras just shook his head and avoided meeting Courfeyrac’s gaze. “Actually, seeing as how I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to get on of the exact kind of people that I hate to marry me…” He trailed off, having already filled Combeferre and Courfeyrac in on the overview of his life, and Courfeyrac sighed.

“I know, I know, and I realize it must have been very hard for you, what with all the rich and handsome men throwing themselves at you,” Courfeyrac said, aiming for a joke.

But Enjolras didn’t smile. “Well, it was made a lot easier by all of them fleeing the moment they saw my face,” Enjolras said dryly.

That shut Courfeyrac up, and Combeferre, who was ever so slightly more perceptive of the two, asked quietly, “All of them?”

“Well, all but one,” Enjolras admitted. “And I thought…” He trailed off. “Well, it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

Courfeyrac perked up. “So just so I’m remembering this correctly, you need to marry a blue blood to get your inheritance and break the curse, right?” Enjolras shrugged and nodded. “Well, listen. I may know a way to make that happen.”

“How?” Enjolras asked skeptically, and Combeferre frowned and echoed, “Yeah, how?”

“My former roommate, Courfeyrac said, a little smugly. “Monsieur Marius Pontmercy. Grandson of a baron. And owes me a hell of a favor.”  



	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks, as always, to everyone who’s read, and thanks yet again to [@myhufflepuffpants](https://tmblr.co/mxbOKLaC-LNlkDVG57pr3_w) for letting me use and abuse your prompt in this way.

ENJOLRAS — ENGAGED.

As far as headlines went, it wasn’t particularly original, and Enjolras, who was still trying to adjust to the fact that, after being treated like a freak for as long as he could remember, everyone seemed to suddenly care about every detail of his life, scoffed as he chucked the newspaper onto a table at the Musain. “You’d think there wasn’t anything else going on in the world that matters,” he said, sinking into a chair and feeling suddenly exhausted.

“Well, it’s not every day that our very own pig-faced hero gets engaged to the son of a baron,” Combeferre pointed out reasonably, passing a cup of coffee over to Enjolras, who accepted it with a grateful smile. “Besides, all this publicity is great. The second or third line of every article has mentioned Les Amis.”

“Yeah, right after they mention my pig snout abnormality,” Enjolras grumbled.

“If it makes you feel better, people have started dogging my footsteps now, too,” the freckled man sitting next to Combeferre offered, with a tentative smile. “Though of course, they’re mostly trying to figure out if I’m just after your money. Or what my sexuality is. Or why I had a temporary restraining order placed against me, which was a complete misunderstanding, I promise.”

Courfeyrac patted his hand. “Marius, m’dear,” he said gently, “shut up.”

As Marius sulked slightly, Combeferre produced a set of legal documents, which he laid in front of Enjolras and Marius. “These are the pre-nuptial agreements, per your terms, written out by Bahorel, who only agreed to break his hiatus from the law because he — and this is a direct quote — loves you fucking fools, hashtag bless.”

Enjolras flipped through the document. “Everything seems in order on my end,” he said. “Marius agrees that he has no claim over any of the Tholomyès inheritance, property, name, etcetera, etcetera, and in return, I will grant him a divorce or annulment within 36 hours of receiving of receiving said Tholomyès inheritance, and I…” He paused, squinting at the document. “And I write a letter of recommendation to the woman that he loves?” He glanced up, bemused. “What is this?”

“A late addition,” Marius said brightly. “I hope you don’t mind. I just think that a letter from you explaining everything would go over well.”

Courfeyrac propped his chin on his hand. “Now, will you be giving her this letter before or after you actually introduce yourself?” Marius turned red and looked away, muttering incoherent excuses to himself. “But that should have everything covered, right?”

Enjolras shrugged. “Works for me.” He hastily scrawled his signature on the indicated lines and passed the document back to Combeferre, not quite meeting his eyes. “Well, if that’s everything, I’ve got things to do.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “And Marius, I’ll, uh, I’ll see you at the altar. I guess.”

With that, he was gone, leaving Courfeyrac, Marius and Combeferre staring after him. “I should go, too,” Combeferre said abruptly, also standing.

“Where have you got to go?” Courfeyrac demanded.

Combeferre just smiled tightly at him. “Wedding preparations. I’ll see you both later.”

And with that, he was gone, too. “So, just you and me, Pontmercy,” Courfeyrac said, fluttering his eyelashes at Marius. “Just like old times.”

Marius turned beet red. “Actually,” he muttered, “I also have to go.”

“How am I the only one who doesn’t have any plans?” Courfeyrac demanded. Marius just shrugged meekly and left, and Courfeyrac pouted for about five seconds before making his way over to two very pretty brunettes at the bar. “Enchanté,” he said with his most winning smile. “My friends all seem to have abandoned me. Perhaps you both would be willing to keep me company?”

The girls looked at each other and giggled, and Courfeyrac grinned, his abandonment entirely forgotten.

* * *

Combeferre didn’t bother knocking on Grantaire’s door, instead letting himself in and leaning against the doorjamb, watching Grantaire paint. After a long moment, and without looking away from his canvas, Grantaire asked, “Can I help you?”

“Have you seen this?” Combeferre asked in lieu of answering, strolling over and tossing that day’s newspaper onto Grantaire’s stool, its headline prominently displayed.

Grantaire barely glanced at the headline and accompanying image of Enjolras and Marius before looking back at the canvas, only the tightening of his grip on his paintbrush giving him away. “Hmm, cute couple,” Grantaire murmured.

Combeferre shook his head. “That’s all you have to say? Really?”

Now Grantaire glanced sideways at him, a muscle working in his jaw. “What do you want me to say?”

“I want you to tell me the truth,” Combeferre said steadily. “There was only one person who didn’t run away from Enjolras, and it doesn’t take a genius to gather from everything he’s told me that this person was you. So you can’t tell me that this isn’t killing you.”

“Why would it kill me?” Grantaire asked, slamming his paintbrush down. “He’s getting everything he wants, the day he’s waited for all his life. Breaking this stupid fucking curse.”

Combeferre rolled his eyes. “You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

Grantaire raised an eyebrow at him. “You don’t?” He snorted and shook his head. “It’s an odd day when our roles are reversed: you, the cynic, and me, the believer.” He shrugged and looked away. “But I guess when you spend enough time down a bottle with only your demons for company, it’s a lot easier to believe in curses.”

Combeferre had no response to that, so he simply shook his head and told Grantaire softly, “It’s not too late to stop the wedding.”

“It’s what he wants,” Grantaire said, equally quiet, though the pain was obvious across his face.

“But it doesn’t have to be!” Combeferre said heatedly. “Look, if all it takes it getting married to break this ‘curse’, why not have it be you?”

Grantaire just shook his head sadly. “Because the curse can only be broken by ‘one of their own’,” he quoted. “And you forget — I’m no blue blood.” He looked back at Combeferre, his expression resigned. “It’s what he wants,” he repeated. “And I want nothing more than to give Enjolras everything that he wants. And the only way that I can do that is by doing nothing.”

* * *

Enjolras stood nervously in front of the mirror, adjusting his cufflinks and trying to ignore his mother, who was sobbing into a handkerchief. “I’m just so _happy_ ,” she blubbered, accepting another handkerchief from Matelote, who patted her shoulder with a clear look of revulsion on her face.

“Well, at least that makes one of us,” Enjolras muttered, abandoning his cufflinks and attempting to do something about his bowtie, which was choking him. “I look like an idiot.”

“You do not,” his mother told him, wiping her eyes carefully so as to not smear her makeup. “You look…” Her eyes flickered to Enjolras’s snout and away again. “You look as perfect as you can,” she pronounced. “And in only an hour’s time, you’ll look as perfect as this day is. And everything we will have worked for will finally, _finally_ …”

It was all too much for her, and she dissolved into tears again.

Matelote looked just plain embarrassed as her employer sobbed into her dress. “At least it’s a beautiful fall day,” she offered. “A week before Halloween, and the weather couldn’t be nicer. Perfect. And your colors — red and black — they go so nicely with the foliage.”

“Well, at least that means the important things are taken care of,” Enjolras muttered, as the band struck up a march.

“Oh, goodness, it’s time!” his mother exclaimed. “Come on, are you ready to _finally_ get married?”

“No,” Enjolras said honestly, offering his arm to his mother. “But let’s do this anyway.”

* * *

The justice’s voice was shaky and could barely be heard above the hundreds of onlookers, 98% of whom Enjolras didn’t know and didn’t particularly care to know. “Do you, Marius Pontmercy, take Enjolras Tholomyès to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward, until death do you part?”

Marius shot a nervous look at a pretty blonde girl sitting in the third row before forcing a smile on his face and turning back to Enjolras. “I do,” he said, more confidently than he looked.

The justice turned his gaze to Enjolras, who could barely stand still, his hands in Marius’s sweaty. “And do you, Enjolras Tholomyès, take Marius Pontmercy to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish from this day forward, until death do you part?”

Enjolras opened his mouth to say ‘yes’ and was as surprised as anyone when he instead said, “No.”

Marius stared at him. “No?” he repeated.

“No,” Enjolras confirmed, pulling his hands away from Marius’s. “I’m so sorry, Marius, but I...I can’t.”

With that, he turned and fled back inside. The crowd broke into nervous whispers as Enjolras’s mother stood, looking around wildly. “Nobody move! He’s fine!” she shrieked, running after her son. “Enjolras, wait! Enjolras! Stop!”

She caught up with Enjolras just as he got inside and grabbed his arm. “What do you think you are doing?” she hissed. “Get back out there and marry him!”

Enjolras shook her off. “I can’t, Mother,” he said, his voice quiet but determined. “I’m sorry, but—”

“What do you mean, you _can’t_?” she shrieked, her voice shrill. “You are getting _married,_ Enjolras, or else!”

“Or else what?” Enjolras challenged, turning on her, his eyes flashing. “What can you do to me that hasn’t already been done?” His mother shook her head, her eyes darting around the room, and Enjolras shook his head. “Look at me,” Enjolras commanded.

Her eyes narrowed. “I am. What is it?”

Enjolras shook his head. “No, look at _me_ ,” he said, and when his mother still refused to look him in the eyes, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Look at me! For once in your life, look me in the eyes and acknowledge that I am your son, just the way I am!”

“That’s enough of that,” his mother snapped. “Enjolras, you need to think about what you’re doing. This is the moment we’ve worked so hard for!”

Shaking his head again, Enjolras let go of his mother and turned away. “Go away,” he said softly, but she ignored him, grabbing the sleeve of his tuxedo and tugging insistently on it.

“Sweetheart, listen — we are just a single ‘yes’ away from a whole new life! A whole new you! Don’t throw it all away!”

Enjolras whirled around. “Don’t you understand?” he shouted. “I don’t want a whole new me. This whole stupid thing—” He gestured wildly towards the where the wedding guests waited. “—It’s only because I want my inheritance. I could care less if I break this stupid curse or if I’m stuck with this pig snout for the rest of my life! I can do — and I have done — amazing things, pig snout or no pig snout!”

His mother shook her head. “But think about how much more good you can do with a pretty face to match—” she started, but Enjolras cut her off.

“I don’t give a damn!” he told her. “I like my face just the way it is. In fact, it’s only taken me this long to realize it, but I fucking _love_ myself the way I am! And until the day I die, I always will!”

Without warning, Enjolras’s entire form seemed covered in golden light. His mom shrieked again and covered her eyes as the light grew brighter. Then, as quickly as it had arrived, the light disappeared, revealing a very confused-looking Enjolras, with a normal human nose. “Oh my god!” his mother said, staring at him with wide eyes. “I don’t...I don’t understand…”

Enjolras felt his nose carefully, a sudden smile breaking out on his face. “Don’t you?” he asked. “I’m a blue blood, and I just promised to love myself until death. _I_ broke the curse.”

Combeferre ran inside, out of breath. “Enjolras, there’s something I have to tell…” He trailed off, his eyes widening at the sight of Enjolras. “Your nose!”

“Yeah, curse broken, old news now,” Enjolras said dismissively, though he was grinning. “What do you have to tell me?”

Combeferre just shook his head. “I was going over your great, great grandfather’s will for a bit of light reading during the ceremony, and you need to read this.”

He shoved a photocopied version of the will into Enjolras’s hand, and Enjolras scanned it, unsure of what he was looking for. “What?” he asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“Don’t you?” Combeferre asked, a note of triumph in his voice. “See — there. It doesn’t say that the next firstborn Tholomyès male will inherit when he gets married, it says he’ll inherit on the day of his wedding.”

Enjolras just stared at him. “So what?” he asked.

Combeferre grinned. “So today was the day of your wedding. The will doesn’t say a damn thing about you having to go through with it.”

Enjolras’s eyes widened. “You mean…”

“I do,” Combeferre said, his grin widening. “Congratulations. You’re now a very rich man. With a very normal nose. And I’d say you can go let Pontmercy down easily, but he’s already left with some blonde girl.” His expression suddenly turned serious. “And you know what this means?”

“Yeah, I can start all the grant programs I want and start giving all the Tholomyès money away,” Enjolras said eagerly, and both he and Combeferre ignored his mother promptly fainting in the background.

Combeferre sighed. “Yes, of course, but more importantly…” He hesitated. “More importantly, there’s something you should know about Grantaire.”

* * *

Courfeyrac linked his arm through Enjolras’s, pulling him through the hallways of the apartment building. Almost all the apartment doors were open and people were mingling and drinking as music raged. “You’re everywhere,” Courfeyrac muttered, grinning, as they passed the seventh person they’d seen wearing a pig mask that Halloween, clearly dressed up like how Enjolras used to look. “Are you freaking out or what?”

Enjolras shook his head. “I mean, yeah, but not from that,” he said, adjusting his own pig mask as they approached one of the only doors that wasn’t open. “Ok, there we are. Apartment 1832.” He took a deep, shuddering breath and went to knock on the door.

“Hold on,” Courfeyrac said, and Enjolras turned, frowning at him. “Sorry, it’s just...It’s kind of great to see the old you.”

Though Courfeyrac couldn’t see it behind the mask, Enjolras rolled his eyes and turned back to the door, taking another deep breath before knocking.

After a moment so long that Enjolras had time to run through every worst case scenario in his head, Grantaire opened the door, looking warily at the pair. “Hey, Courf, what’s up?” he asked.

“This is my friend,” Courfeyrac said brightly, shoving Enjolras forward. “He’s gotta pee. Let him use your bathroom?” He leaned in and kissed Grantaire’s cheek. “There’s a darling. I’m off to get more punch.” He winked at Grantaire and vanished back into the party.

Grantaire looked at Enjolras without smiling. “I guess it’s ok,” he said reluctantly, stepping back and holding the door open. “Come on in.”

Enjolras cautiously stepped into Grantaire’s apartment, heading toward the bathroom in the direction Grantaire gestured to buy himself some time. “It looks like a good party,” he called, a little lamely. “Why aren’t you out there having fun?”

“I’ve got to pack,” Grantaire said, and Enjolras peeked out of the bathroom, surprised to see a suitcase open on Grantaire’s bed.

“Oh, are you moving?” Enjolras asked innocently.

Grantaire shrugged, tossing a balled-up shirt into the suitcase with perhaps more force than necessary. “Yeah, I’ve got an out-of-town job. I just…” He shook his head. “I needed to get out of the city for awhile.”

Enjolras slowly came out of the bathroom. “Away from the crowds?” he asked, edging towards the door.

Snorting, Grantaire sat down on his bed. “Yeah, the crowds at the bars,” he muttered.

“Oh, so you’re an drinker?” Enjolras asked.

Grantaire shrugged. “Trying to cut back. I’ve been told that stuff will kill you, so I’m trying to, you know, avoid temptation. In more ways than one.”

“Right,” Enjolras said, swinging his arms awkwardly, not sure what he was supposed to say to that. “Well that’s good. I, uh, I had a friend once who really liked to drink. At least, well, I’ve been told he liked to drink. And he had to stay away from—”

“Take off the mask,” Grantaire said suddenly, and Enjolras froze, staring at him. Grantaire shook his head, his shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry, it’s just...all Halloween, I’ve been running into...well, somebody that I used to know.” He ran a tired hand across his face and forced a smile. “Sorry. Being ridiculous.”

Enjolras swallowed and asked in an attempt at a light and airy voice, “This someone, did he mean a lot to you?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Yeah,” he said softly. “Yeah, he did.”

“So what happened?”

“I couldn’t give him what he wanted,” Grantaire said.

The stark honesty in his voice cut Enjolras to the core, and it took him a moment before he was able to ask, his voice soft and strange-sounding to his own ears, “What did he want?”

Grantaire shrugged again, his eyes staring at something far away. “To be free.”

Enjolras was about to respond when he noticed for the first time the half-finished canvas in the corner. “You lied to me!” he exclaimed, stalking towards the canvas. “I guessed that you were a painter, and you—”

Without warning, Grantaire stood and grabbed Enjolras, pulling him into a deep, fierce kiss, one hand cupping Enjolras’s cheek while the other wrapped possessively around Enjolras’s waist. Enjolras kissed him back, a desperate, hungry edge to his kiss.

When they broke apart, Grantaire rested his forehead against Enjolras. “Enjolras, I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“I know,” Enjolras murmured, because he did know, more than he could ever explain.

Grantaire shook his head, his tone turning urgent. “No, you don’t understand — I don’t have the power to break the curse. That’s why…”

He trailed off, and it was Enjolras’s turn to shake his head. “It’s ok,” he said softly, reaching up to take his mask off. “It turns out that I did.” Grantaire just stared at him for a moment, and Enjolras bit his lip. “Grantaire, it’s still me.”

“Of course it is,” Grantaire said instantly. “I just…” He reached up to touch Enjolras’s face gently. “You always were beautiful. And I’m a little jealous that everyone’s going to be able to see what I always have.”

Enjolras kissed Grantaire then, and Grantaire’s lips curved against his into a smile, his fist balling in Enjolras’s shirt as if he would never let go.

So with the curse broken and the inheritance received, they had nothing left to do but to live happily ever after. And they did. Or at least, happily ever after so far.


End file.
